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Originally Posted by GGG
One thing to keep in mind is that the flames could easily afford to build its own arena.
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No, they could not.
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Simply spending to the floor rather than the cap would give them 20 million USD per year of cash flow to build what ever they wanted.
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And when the cap goes up to $100 million, they'll have to spend that money anyway. You can't project future cashflow on the assumption that it is going to be 2022 forever.
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Now would we want to watch a team only spending to the floor? Maybe not, but corporate support likely stays the same and that is what really pays the bills.
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The last time the Flames could not afford to ice a competitive team, season ticket sales collapsed.
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But the important take away here is the NHL produces enough money in every one of their markets to build their own arenas and turn a profit.
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That is absolutely wrong. Small markets are marginal at best, and several NHL markets are perennial money-losers.
As I've pointed out based on Forbes' data, the top three teams in the NHL (Toronto, Montreal, Rangers) earn more than half the total profits. The top third of teams earn 100% of the profits. Any earnings from the teams in the middle of the pack are cancelled out by the losses of those at the bottom. Owning an NHL team is not a licence to print money.
And that's with most of the teams in arenas they did not pay to build themselves.
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If the NHL decided to fight the players to have a 30 million cut to the salary cap they could open a 900 million dollar facility every year and the average player salary would still be over 2 billion.
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And the NHLPA would go along with this why? It took two catastrophic lockouts to get them to agree to the deal they have now.